This week’s EU LCS was filled to the brim with weird picks like Fizz and mid lane Wukong, and it looks like the NA LCS is learning from their European sister league. During today’s week eight opener between 100 Thieves and Echo Fox, 100T’s Andy “AnDa” Hoang locked in an equally strange pick—Poppy jungle.
It worked way too well.
As tanks slowly climb back into the meta, Poppy is certainly one of the better top lane picks. In fact, she’s seen some significant priority in picks and bans in North America over the last couple of weeks. The thing is, though, that’s only really been for her top lane power. She’s not exactly known as a jungler. And by “not exactly,” we mean she isn’t at all known as a jungler.
For AnDa, however, it was a match made in heaven. Thanks to high crowd control on Rakan, Zoe, and Cho’Gath, he didn’t have to worry about needing a wall nearby to land a solid gank. He just dove towers and soaked up all that pesky DPS. And despite building full tank, he put out some high damage himself.
If you want to drop a Popster in the jungle yourself, you definitely can. She’s particular strong in the river when the Scuttle Crab spawns, due to there being walls all around to duel the enemy jungler. When ganking, though, be prepared to struggle a bit if your laning allies don’t have enough crowd control to set you up.
All in all, she’s one of the best tanks in the game, and even if you take her as a support, you can’t go that wrong. Please don’t take her support, though.
